Life is not worth living without a cause worth dying for...

is the maxim that guides the lives of four friends who come of age during their life and death struggle to prevent the take over of their country during the Cold War.

SYNOPSIS

Recent events in Iraq brought to light striking
parallels between the Cold War and the War on
Terrorism: secret trials and tribunals; the suspension
of civil liberties and legal rights; secrecy; torture;
and disappearances. One parallel in particular stands
out: the suspension of human rights. Just as the Bush
administration did, the South American military
justified its sacrifice of human rights as the
necessary cost of fighting terrorism, which it defined
as any activity that questioned their right to impose
whatever measures they considered necessary to achieve
their own political ends.

Based on the award winning novel by Tessa Bridal, and
set in Uruguay between 1962 and 1981, "The Tree of Red
Stars" is a story of ideals under fire. It examines the
effects of the Cold War on the lives of four friends,
Cora, Magdalena, Marco and Emilia as all four friends
are caught in the consequences of the unrest triggered
by the Cuban revolution and its effects on the politics
of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Cora, a 12 year old American of Jewish descent, arrives
in Uruguay with her family when her father assumes his
new post as General Manager of an American corporation.
She quickly makes friends with her neighbors,
Magdalena, Emilia, and Marco, and joins them when they
attend a speech given at the University by Ché Guevara.

It is a fateful event for the four friends. Cora meets
a leftist leader, Ramiro, with whom she falls in love.
Emilia is able to prove her mother’s suspected
involvement with the emerging guerrilla movement, and
Magdalena witnesses the fatal shooting of a student.

For Marco, the consequences of attending the speech are
also grave. His intolerant and domineering father,
General Pereyra, demands that Marco follow in his
footsteps and enlist in the Army. Marco comes to see
this as an opportunity of being where he can do the
most good, by supporting the officers determined to
defend the constitution and prevent a military take
over of the country.

He does everything he can to prevent his friends,
especially Magdalena who he has loved since he was a
young teenager, from becoming involved with the
Tupamaro guerrillas, until Magdalena discovers how U.S.
State Department police trainer, Dan Mitrione, has used
their childhood friend Gabriela in his experiments with
electricity, torturing her to death.

Nothing can now prevent her from joining Cora and
Ramiro and participating in their plot to kidnap
Mitrione. When the government refuses to negotiate by
freeing imprisoned guerrillas, Mitrione is executed,
and in the massive sweep that follows, Cora and Ramiro
are arrested, and held under new laws allowing for
indefinite detainment without trial.

Cora’s father confronts the U.S. Ambassador, who holds
to the official line that there are no unregistered
detainees, and that Cora has probably left the country
without notifying them.

The only bright spot in the friend’s lives seems to be
Emilia, who has fallen in love with a British diplomat
and removed herself from anything to do with the unrest
in the country. She attends a party at Peter's home
believing he is planning to propose, only to discover
that Peter has been investigating her mother and
believes that Emilia herself was involved in the recent
kidnapping of British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson.

Emilia is arrested, tortured, and released only after
Marco includes her in a secret deal between the
Military and the Tupamaros for the release of prisoners
in exchange for Jackson's life. But he can’t save
Magdalena, who is arrested and disappears for several
long, desperate months while Marco looks for her
everywhere. He appeals to his father for help, finds
her, and is forced to exchange his liberty for hers.

After years of solitary confinement for Marco and exile
for Magdalena, Emilia, the survivor, who has never lost
hope that Cora will one day be found, brings them
together in the place where they met a lifetime before.

From being known as the "Switzerland of the Americas," Uruguay became infamous as the country with the highest per capita torture rate. Trained at the School of the Americas in Panama, the country's military dictators took Uruguay on a downward spiral of human rights abuses, and became one of the six countries involved in the "Condor Operation," a conspiracy that united the dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay with their silent partner and mastermind behind it, the United States of America...

Those of us who lived through these troubled times, have a strong historical perspective to contribute by exposing the interests and men behind both the Cold War and the current war on terrorism. Doing so by means of a human-interest story, involving the lives of people we are brought to care about, is our strongest and most effective tool.